Entries in Euthanasia
(3)

Facebook(NEW YORK) -- Jack the cat, the Norwegian Forest kitty that captured hearts across the country when he was found seven weeks after getting lost at New York's JFK airport, died on Sunday.

According to a statement made on his fan Facebook page, the five-year-old feline was euthanized Sunday by a veterinarian after succumbing to his wounds.

“Jack had extensive wounds on the back of his body, and the wounds were unable to heal because his skin had deteriorated due to the malnutrition that occurred while he was lost … The vet compared his skin condition to having severe burns over 50-60 percent of his body,” the statement read.

“The vet was very clear that she had conferred with every possible doctor regarding options for Jack, but none of them left him with a substantial chance of survival and all of them involved him suffering,” the statement continued.

American Airlines said in a previous statement that they assumed responsibility for covering Jack’s veterinary and medical expenses after he was found on Oct. 26 -- nearly two months after becoming lost when his owner, Karen Pascoe, was traveling from New York to California.

Photo Courtesy - ABC News(SULPHUR, Okla.) -- Hundreds of people across the nation and beyond are trying to adopt a puppy in Sulphur, Okla., that survived an attempt to euthanize it.

Animal Control Officer Scott Prall arrived at the local animal shelter at the end of his shift Feb. 18 where he found six or seven malnourished puppies. His supervisor instructed him to kill the dogs because the local shelter was overcrowded. There were 22 dogs in a facility with only 12 cages.

Prall injected each puppy, along with two larger abandoned dogs, with two supposedly lethal doses of a sedative. The first was given in the foreleg and the other was injected into the heart, meant to ensure the dogs' deaths.

"Each dog had a shot administered into them," he said. "We all figured the shot would basically put them down because of their weight and everything."

The dogs were pronounced dead by a doctor who checked them thoroughly for any signs of life. None of the dogs had a heartbeat. Prall placed all of the bodies into a large trash container that was set to be emptied the next day, putting the bigger dogs' bodies on top of the smaller puppies'.

Prall left after that and returned the next day, expecting the trash container to be empty. He was not only surprised to find that it hadn't been emptied but that one of the puppies was alive.

"That dog, he was just sitting on top of the other dogs," he said. "Just sitting on top, just looking at me."

Prall was amazed that the puppy had survived not only the injections but other conditions as well.

"He wound up surviving in the 30s during the night, and wound up surviving two large dogs being put on top of him," he said.

He immediately took the puppy to veterinary technician Amanda Kloski, who noted the dog's story on an adoption website, catching the attention of Marcia Machtiger of Pittsburgh, who donated $100 so Kloski could board the dog for a week.

The dog was given the name Wall-E by a little girl from Sulphur, after the lone survivor on Earth in the Disney movie of the same name.

Photo Courtesy - Getty Images(OKLAHOMA CITY) -- Lawyers for a death row inmate in Oklahoma are protesting a state plan to kill their client using a drug typically used to put down animals amid a nationwide shortage of the anesthetic regularly used in executions.

Oklahoma is considering the use of pentobarbital, a drug used to euthanize animals, in the upcoming execution of John David Duty, a convicted murderer scheduled to be executed on Dec. 12.

Across the country, states that implement the death penalty by lethal injection are scrambling to determine alternative ways to kill convicts. Hospira, the maker of sodium thiopental, better known as Pentothal, has announced a suspension of production of the drug because of an unspecified supply problem with the drug's key ingredient.

"We are probably going to look at a number of different options now that we can't use sodium thiopental," said Jerry Massie, spokesman for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. "We are not sure yet what we'll end up using, but pentobarbital is a strategy we're looking at."

In court documents requesting approval to use pentobarbital, the state called the drug "an ideal anesthetic agent for humane euthanasia in animals," comparing it to the sodium thiopental used as the first part of a three-drug cocktail administered during an execution.

In federal court documents filed Monday, Duty's lawyers argued that using pentobarbital is potentially painful and would be tantamount to torture. "Pentobarbital is untested, potentially dangerous, and could well result in a torturous execution for Mr. Duty," his lawyers wrote.﻿